With less than a century of popular music as we know it under our belt, it seems there is only so much “original” work left to create—only so many notes on a scale, only so many sounds to make with widely available instruments. In that vein, so much of the nostalgia deeply baked into almost everything served to us now is a desperate grab for time lost or for a world dead and gone, which we either remember or missed the boat on completely—a time when we could experience something wholly new, tilting our world on its axis. Why would you imagine a new world, this practice asks, when it’s unlikely any of us will live long enough to see one? The past had its own blatant ugliness (and don’t worry, those aspects of it seem to be the ones coming back into style with full force), but I don’t blame artists for clinging to this wave of looking backward. There’s plenty worth grieving from a musician’s or a music lover’s perspective; the opportunity for said artists to get paid to live off their art, a general population where not everyone sees themselves as alienated—constantly performing in public, now alien to ourselves.
The music made by Marcus Brown, under the name Nourished by Time, is easily traceable through the medium’s history, from the instrumentation he uses, to the master artists he references, to the genres he’ll briefly dip into before springing out in search of different musical waters—all steeped in a clear love of house music, new wave, new jack swing, electronica, and R&B balladry. There are surely comparisons to be made (in his initial press, Brown was described as a cross between girl group SWV and cult sophisti-pop kings the Blue Nile, while Oneohtrix Point Never recently opted for “Arthur Russell meets Daft Punk, but deep R&B”), but there is a quality to what Brown does that cannot be compressed into easy PR-speak, that has rarely ever felt like imitation. The framework for what he’s created has existed before, so why does it feel like we’re listening to the future of the form every time he returns? Why does The Passionate Ones, his second full-length album and his first with storied label XL, feel like one of the most refreshing, vital releases of the year? It defies all we’ve come to understand about how independent music of all stripes works now, so why?
What makes the work of the 30-year-old “Baltimore songwright,” as he’s labeled himself on socials, so hard to pin down is how he’s melded all these influences, honed writing chops, and production trademarks into something distinctly his own. For those of us who have been riding the bandwagon as early as 2022’s Erotic Probiotic EP, if not earlier, there’s been a clear progression that you can track from release to release, as his music—all self-produced and self-written—has gone through gradual incubation stages, usually held by the same technological and sonic constraints while returning to the same lyrical obsessions. With those guiding limits to push up against, Brown has written himself a wider screen to play with in the songs themselves, making for more complex iterations on the winning template that’s become his trademark. If you’re a purveyor of any DIY music, you know it’s rare you get to see this type of self-contained artist elevate so consistently as they go. For those of us who’ve been hoarding shares of our Nourished by Time stock over the past few years, this is what makes him a voice worth dropping everything for.
Another thing that makes Nourished by Time feel so of our present moment is a seemingly complete lack of inhibition and embrace of full-throttle sincerity around his own societal role as an artist, all without ever seeming neutered or disingenuous, as so many younger artists do once forced to market themselves. These are topics he’s returned to in the lead-up to the record, including a 24-hour livestream on YouTube, during which he talked through his own journey and hosted conversations with other artists he admires as a first step towards foster future collaborations, admitting he doesn’t “really like a lot of people in the music industry.”
Yet, in a landscape where so many songs are described as “cathartic” or “personal” in order to catch your algorithm’s interest, The Passionate Ones’ titular cult calls for any of that intense emotion to physically spur change into action beyond the self—deploying Brown’s sheer charisma and the craft he’s developed over time, both required to be that change and bolster his call. “We don’t have to be so average,” Brown sings on album track “It’s Time,” delivering what might serve as the record’s most direct thesis statement through layered tracks of his unmistakable baritone, half side-eyeing the people in his field not willing to match that level of commitment, “and I say that with love.”
Though each Nourished by Time release has dealt with these same concerns—throwing oneself fully into their art and relationships despite the factors that hold them back from maintaining that dedication, primarily late-stage capitalism—The Passionate Ones feels like Brown’s most considered, elaborate expression of these personal and communal fears. These stakes had been established right out of the gate with the record’s three singles, the first of which, “Max Potential,” crescendos and crashes over crystalline synths and pitched-up vocal samples as it beseeches a love interest who can’t even summon a faint facsimile of Brown’s devotion: “There’s no reason for your call if I can’t call on you / You’re not passionate at all, and that’s all on you.”
This perceived lack of passion is juxtaposed with an empathetic tribute to a friend balancing his artistic pursuits with the stress of his day job on “9 2 5,” a glittering deep house track that drips with tenderness under its full-throttle beat. Given that Brown was in a similar situation to the one depicted until only a few months ago, according to his own introduction on the promotional livestream, the lyrics read as a blessing from one gig worker to another, warning against the perils he might encounter as he tries to curtail the struggle: “May you always have a fight, be it wrong or be it right / Shed a raindrop when you cry, but beware of sedatives and passing time.”
Dependence—or rather, being driven to dependence by dire economic circumstances—is a theme Brown returns to on “Jojo,” which features British rapper and producer Tony Bontana, one of the album’s few collaborative efforts, as well as on third single “BABY BABY.” The latter track is sardonic and musically erratic, bouncing from class-conscious rap verses (“Buy anything, just buy it fucking often / Yeah, turn your fucking brain off, operation brainwash / If we all strike right now, the gravy train stops”) to a wiry surf-guitar breakdown, toggling between each mode at a breakneck pace to mimic the economy of distraction in which we find ourselves mired in. Each movement is staggeringly inventive in its own right, even as it’s whizzing by you. You can hear the smile in Brown’s voice as he yells the correctly capitalized title at the end of each verse, and the sheer magnetism packed within the delivery of that one word carries enough charm to draft even the most skeptical listener into the album’s fictional cult, regardless of their thoughts on socialist praxis.
With all of this considered, the reason Marcus Brown has consistently been able to strike this addictive balance with each project, where references to our stark reality never feel like a chore to acknowledge or decode, likely lies in how fun Nourished by Time is to listen to. Moments like the intro to “Crazy People,” with its spectral vocal loop washing in and out of overlapping piano lines until the it builds into a full-on synth workout, or the overwhelming build to the chorus of the title track, or the bell-like sound effects thrown into the mix on the verses of the ballad “Tossed Away,” all make a case for the evocative details Brown builds into each song, threatening to sweep you away into the world of his ideals—where all deeds done are never for money and always for love, and if you’re going to drown in something, it may as well be the connection you crave rather than the weight of a paycheck.
Even if the core musical elements which made Erotic Probiotic 2 or last year’s Catching Chickens EP feel like such impressive, homespun projects are still in play, The Passionate Ones only serves to stretch the scope of those releases to hold the full range of both the anger and romance driving his writing—and he pulls off this leap ahead beautifully. When he repeats the phrase “automatic love” until it seems to lose all meaning in the song of the same name, you get the feeling that it’s out of sheer disbelief that his nerves still allow him to feel so intensely, like he wants to savor the words until his mouth goes completely numb, letting The Passionate Ones serve as documentation of these signs of life while we can still recognize them. Time will tell whether Brown’s laser-focused, unfettered vision will be diluted if he lets other musicians in on the party on future releases, but to this point, you can tell that he means every blistering, bewildering second of his recorded output, and he means it with love. In terms of music that risks tilting your world on its axis, I’m not sure you could ask for more.
Elise Soutar is a New York-born-and-based music and culture writer.
